Meet Kingsley Moghalu, YPP's Presidential candidate

Moghalu is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished candidates contesting for the presidency at next month's polls.Professor Kingsley Moghalu wants Nigerians to ditch leaders that have failed to ensure the nation's progress

On September 8, 2018, Professor Kingsley Moghalu emerged the presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) at the party's first national convention in Abuja.

Ever since the 55-year-old first declared his intention to contest for the presidency in February 2018, he's positioned himself as one of the most prominent challengers to the candidates of Nigeria's two biggest parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has become one of the most prominent faces of the 'Third Force' movement against Nigeria's established order whom he's relentlessly rallied against.

Moghalu believes that Nigeria has been robbed of its destiny by the long-serving leaders who "care nothing for the ordinary Nigerian".

"They aggravate our fears in the hope that we will continue to keep them in power even though offer nothing new," he said in February 2018.

Unlike many other candidates, Moghalu is one to shy away from promising quick fixes as he has noted that decades of economic and leadership mismanagement "cannot be undone in a few short weeks or months".

Moghalu's focus if elected president

Moghalu has promised to economically restructure the country in a way that every zone benefits

The candidate believes Nigeria's unitary state should be restructured to create more independence for sub-national units.

According to his version of restructuring, the six geo-political zones should be restructured into geo-economic zones, a system that will enable regions control their resources and pay taxes to the Federal Government.

"We must return to a constitution that creates a proper federation and that federation, in my vision, should be based on the six geo-political zones, not on states," he said during a November 2018 interview with Pulse.

"We must create a new economy that restructures Nigeria on the basis of six geo-political zones. Any restructuring of Nigeria means that we must return to resource control where the regions control their resources and pay some tax to the Federal Government. I propose 40% at most, or maybe 30%," he added.

Moghalu believes his process of restructuring the country would take 18 months to complete with the full involvement of the National Assembly and the Nigerian people.

"When I become president in May, within 18 months, we would have completed the constitutional restructuring by the National Assembly and the State Assemblies.

"We, as the executive, we go to them with an executive bill of how we think the country should look and we'll discuss it and the legislature will go to work.

"We will go directly to the Nigerian people and open up a debate on restructuring so that we can know what people want and reflect that in whatever the legislature does," he said.

With him as president, he has promised that the country's economy would become more innovation-driven. He has vowed that his government would establish a N1 trillion venture capital fund to help Nigerians run their businesses more efficiently and profitably.

To actualise his vision for Nigeria, Moghalu said he does not care on whose toes he has to step as long as it helps the country. He clarified that this means he'll be a decisive leader and not necessarily a confrontational one.

"I don't care about stepping on toes, In fact, I'll smash a lot of toes. If your toe is stopping progress in this country, I'm going to be your enemy.

"When I talk about smashing toes, I'm not saying that I'll have a confrontational style, I'm just saying I'm going to be a decisive leader," he told Pulse.

Moghalu's accomplishments

Moghalu strongly believes he's Nigeria's next president

Of Nigeria's long list of presidential candidates contesting next month, Moghalu is unarguably one of the most accomplished.

While his most recognised role has been serving as CBN Deputy Governor from 2009 to 2014, he was also a member of the Board of Directors, the Monetary Policy Committee, and the Committee of Governors of the CBN, and was also a member of Nigeria's Economic Management Team.

He further served as a member or chair of the boards of directors of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation (IILMC), Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), and the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).

The economist is also an author of several books and articles on law, banking regulation, economic development, political economy and public policy and is a frequent speaker at global forums.

He obtained an M.A. degree at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he was the Joan Gillespie Fellow and Research Assistant in the International Political Economy (IPE) Program, in 1992, and later obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) at the University of London, United Kingdom, and the International Certificate in Risk Management from the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) in London.

During his 16-year stint (1992-2008) with the United Nations (UN), Moghalu served as a human rights and elections officer, political affairs officer in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN Headquarters in New York, political advisor to the special representative of the UN Secretary-General in Croatia, legal adviser to the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania (and later as the tribunal's spokesman), and as a member of the high-level Redesign Panel on the United Nations Internal Justice System.

Moghalu was also appointed to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland as Head of Global Partnerships and Resource Mobilization at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), and was a member of the Global Fund's Senior Management Group before he was promoted to the rank of Director in 2006.

Umma Getso, 37, is Moghalu's 2019 presidential running mate

His running mate for the February 16 election is Umma Getso, a political activist and business entrepreneur.